Whew, I am so glad to hear of all these molts! I was a wreck a few weeks ago when I posted about Z possibly molting and heard that it is definetly not supposed to happen now and that maybe she was barbering or plucking. I had never heard of barbering and thought she was sick or upset and was plucking. But... thank you to my parrot chatter friends for easing my mind with all your molting stories! (I love this place!)

Mine are molting and have been for quite some time. slow molt i think. it stops then starts.

When my guys were molting again in winter I was worrying as well, and tried to alter their diet and light schedule, to no avail. And my tiel has not molted this winter and she gets the same light schedule and practically the same diet. So I don't attribute the diet and lighting to the budgies' molting.

HAH!

Well now I feel a little left out (just kidding), but I've got nothing going on here.

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We do use our FS light more consistently this year than before - on from 4pm until 7pm. These things take time for me to make part of my routine - no timers.
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Lights need to be turned off when dusk starts (this time of the year around 5:30 pm) so they can get the full benefit of dusk. Twilight is what triggers the deep brain photoreceptors that activate the pineal gland internal clock that tells the bird's body if it's time to breed, to molt, to migrate, etc.

And Sarah, I am sorry to disagree but it cannot be anything else but lights and diet. Birds don't choose or decide to do anything when it comes to their endocrine system, it's completely and 100% dependent on environmental conditions: length and quality of light, diet and to a lesser degree, temperature. That's it. Nothing else. It's true that not even scientists know exactly how the molting process is controlled but we do know that it's brought on by hormonal changes due to seasonal differences. If you give them 12 hours of light or more in winter, the same comfortable temperature and the same steady diet all year round, their circannual cycle gets confused because this never, ever happens in the wild. In the wild, even in the equator, there are seasons. But not inside an average, normal human home. That's why some birds molt in the winter or spring when they are not supposed to. And, from some members descriptions, some of their birds are in slow molt, something very dangerous if not taken care of because it depletes the bird, overworks the liver and slowly erodes the immune system until the bird develops a bacterial, viral or fungal infection and dies. This is one of the reasons why birds usually die young in captivity, we make their little bodies work overtime until they cannot do it any longer.

There are species of birds that molt into a nuptial plumage right before breeding and back to a more drab one -post nuptial- for the winter (like the American Goldfinch, yellow for breeding but greyish the rest of the year) but parrots look the same all year round so this doesn't apply to them. And there are species that molt right before migration and some that molt only primaries before and stop in what it's called a hotspot to finish it before continuing migration but parrots don't migrate. And sea or marsh birds usually molt completely twice a year but that's because their feathers suffer such wear and tear. But, as far as I know (and I will be the first to admit that I don't know that much), none of the most common psittaform species we keep as companion birds molts more than once a year in the wild. People talk about a partial winter molt and a full fall molt for parrots but, to my knowledge (and, again, please correct me and point me to a link or a reference if any of you have read something different somewhere), this only happens to captive birds and, in my experience, only if the circannual cycle is off. None, I repeat, none of my birds molts during the winter, spring, beginning of summer or end of fall and, personally, if any of my birds molted off-season, I would be worried and looking for the reason why this happened.

I wouldn't say my birds are molting, but I do find some pin feathers happening, more than what happens in the winter. And while the macaws have not shed feathers (except poor plucking Franny) I have found a few feathers on the bottom of Rosa's cage. Not enough to call a molt, but there is some feather loss. I keep them to a strict dawn to dusk schedule with a fairly good diet, so I don't know how to explain that.

On the thread about the Spectrabird lights [ SpectraBird Lighting ] I learned that the FS lights I'm using are the wrong kind.

Thanks for the info on the dusk situation - I am reviewing this very carefully. I really don't want to kill my birds with ignorance.

I was worried about the stress in their wee bodies with all this molting. I hope I can turn this around.

It has to be the lighting schedule, in our case. I think.

Bea, when you say lights turned off when dusk starts, do you mean all lights or all avian lighting? Is twilight time always about 2 hours before sundown? Also, I use black out shades, so they're missing twilight. How do I adjust for this? Same with Dawn, they're not seeing the sun come up. They are located at the front of the house so shades are used so outside lights don't disturb them. I never give them less than a 12 hour night. Would it be healthier for them to follow the natural day/night vs. a minimum of 12 hour nights?

Yes, Karen, all lights should be off if you follow this schedule. This is why I situate our birds in the back of the house, away from the street lights. I turn off their lights in late afternoon, so they get the benefit of sunset and twilight. It's wonderful to see how they calm down and settle in. Then I move them to their upstairs roost, where they will be exposed to the rising sun. They are really tuned into the natural day cycle.

My husband was commenting the other day how wonderful it is that the birds have brought this energy and awareness of day and night into our lives. At first, everyone bitched and complained, and made jokes about eating in the dark, but now it's like a natural rhythm has set in, and rooms are lit as needed, but the hallways and bird areas are kept dark (saves money too!).

Yes I forgot to say that following a natural light schedule during the winter is pretty much impossible for me - if I did that, the birds would not come out of their cages during the week due to us working full time. And to me, not getting exercise is unacceptable to me, and therefore I put their exercise first and foremost before their being in bed before I get home from work.